HRD in an Alternate Universe???

Did you ever see one of those old episodes of Star Trek (or any sci-fi show of your choice) where they end up in an alternate universe somehow? Instead of being good and noble, the main characters are self-serving and evil (not to mention the drinking, tight clothes, and pointy black beards). As evil beings that are still in positions of power and influence, they exert an evil influence of those around them simply by the choices they make. HRD professionals without standards of ethics and integrity can have a similarly detrimental influence. By nature of their work, HRD professionals guide and direct organizations with employees from varying cultures, backgrounds, and experience. While it is questionable whether a HRD professional would truly be working to make an organization evil, without clear guidelines for ethics each person must rely on their own interpretation of right and wrong which may be clouded by bias or inclination. As such it is imperative to have established standards to guide organizational procedures, conflict resolution, and general practices.

Although there are still many differing theories within the field of HRD, the goal of improvement, problem orientation, and systems thinking provide overriding points of agreement. When I explain to people that I am returning to school to obtain a Masters degree in adult education/ human resource development, I am typically met with a blank look and pleasant “that’s nice”. However when I go on to state my own ‘bottom line purpose of human resource development’ by explaining that I want to help organizations do what they do, only do it much better, I receive a much more interested and comprehensive response. All three of these concepts work toward that goal of helping organizations do things “better” which I believe to be the heart (though not the soul, check back for my article review on this subject) of HRD. I understand that contemporaries in the field such as Bierema completely disagree with me, arguing that productivity based performance measures lead to a slippery slope of mechanism. However learning without performance seems to me much like eating when you are not hungry. You could do it, but what would be the point? Your condition will not be improved, and you may even be in worse shape afterward. However, as I am young to this field, I reserve the right to completely change my mind by the end of this course if rational thought can induce me to do so.

Basic systems theory has always seems pretty common sense to my analytical nature. In order to figure out how to reach your goal (or in HRD lingo, ‘desired state’) you have to figure out which elements are in place (input), what in the relationship between these elements or what is currently being done to them (process), and what is the result (output). Once you understand this process, which by no means is necessarily an easy task, you can set about trying to change/modify/add to what is currently happening to reach your desired state. However what surprised me was the idea and emphasis Swanson and Holton III place on naming and defining the system in place (2001, 17). I can easily imagine this alone being a point of contention among colleagues, thus invariably resulting in skewed results, and misunderstandings. Failing to understand these crucial elements will ultimately lead to a faulty process and failure to reach the desired goal. I am converted to believe that explicit clarification of what is being discussed should precede any discussion that is analytical or compensatory in nature.

HRD is such an enormous concept, that placing it within a worldview helps people understand it in a more applicable way. While I fully believe that people are responsible for their own actions, placing all of the responsibility on the individual worker to reach out to the organization for learning, training, etc (as seen in the “learner perspective”) undercuts the core of the issue. Yes, organizations have faulty processes and sometimes a worker will be the first to recognize something is not working well. However as I have stated earlier, workers and departments have a limited point of view that only allows them to see a certain perspective on the situation. Thus, putting the emphasis on them to realize and/or seek training to fix this process will yield poor results. Placing the burden fully on the worker OR organization fails to recognize the value of impartial consultation. The organization as a whole must be able to see the big picture (most likely the human resource development department) and implement a change that will most effectively solve the current problem.